Trapeze Artist
by KaleidoscopeOfWords
Summary: She was made up of too little lies and too much hardcore truth. In other words, what once was Good in her was slowly fading, the echoes leaving chills in those who knew her.


**Trapeze Artist**

_She was made up of too little lies and too much hardcore truth. In other words, what once was Good in her was slowly fading, the echoes leaving chills in those who knew her._

She was made up of too little lies and too much hardcore truth.

It was her own fault, really, accepting the hard reality. And they had drowned her in it ever since.

_Too much blood, blood everywhere, her blood, their blood, some dried along her arm, some fresh dripping into the crevice of her eyelid, some pulsing in her veins. She always believed that somewhere deep down in everyone, there was Good. _

_But someone with the tiniest hint of Good would still never do what she was witnessing._

_No emotion, no emotion, show nothing but a flicker of disgust, a moment of vengeance. _

_She was never to feel sorry, never to pity, never to feel guilty._

_The truth simply didn't need all the adjectives._

_That's what they say – without the adjectives, you have the facts._

She hated dreaming even more since she was plunged into the abyss of never-ending assassinations, since she was thrown headfirst into the minds of seriously disturbed beings.

Before, her mind would never be able to conjure such vivid images.

Now they left her afraid to sleep, walking on her tiptoes as she slid into the hall, and lying awake at night, _alone, alone, alone_, the only time she was allowed to be afraid when nobody was watching.

_She decided one night, early on in her new vision of the truth, that long hair and material things didn't matter when they were just lies. Maybe not lies exactly, but they swayed a person's judgment of who you really were._

_Second time in her life she puts a sharp blade to her hair and feathers of pink burst everywhere._

_It's jagged and choppy and pieces are missing where they shouldn't be, but it's real to her._

_For good measure, she makes the right side a bit longer than the left._

_She ran a hand through it._

_It was the beginning of her walk through hell._

She lay there awake, replaying the scene of the little girl in her head. She is unable to justify the purple circles under her eyes and the way her skin clings to her bones. She will still be unable to justify these things tomorrow at work.

They know.

She knows they know.

She knows they sit there and pity her and _oh, what a poor girl, she's not so innocent anymore –_

But wait. She chose this goddamn road of 'not innocence'. Chose it right after her best friends walked out on her.

"_Hey."_

_It was not like nothing had changed._

_Everything had._

_She stood with her back turned on the training field, a blonde and a boy with ravenous hair standing behind her. It had been a year in a half since their return, since their reunion. _

_She hadn't spoken more than few broken melodies, clipped and choppy like her hair, almost as if she didn't know how. But she did. And they realized that when she erupted, a mess of flying weapons and paper cut words. They finally left her alone when she threatened her own life._

"_We were wondering…" But the blonde stopped, his voice faltering as she turned towards him. Her eyes cried for help, she was gone, gone, gone, almost, but he could not give it. Anytime he tried, he was hurt so violently, if only because he didn't expect it. _

_Today was no different. She went on sharpening the weapon in her hand, an eerie look about her. Then fast as lightening with a blue glow, she swung her hand, and he blinked and missed it – blood spurted from his leg._

_He left with a few curses and then silence._

_She turned around, sniffing, knowing that the ravenous hair boy wouldn't do anything without the blonde. She corrected herself; he wouldn't do anything even in his companion's presence._

_Wrong._

_Why wasn't he fitting his mold?_

_She was up against a tree so fast that she cried out a little, surprise seemingly her friend turned foe. His hands were so much bigger than her wrists that they fit into the crescent his thumb and pointer finger made. He pressed her hard into the tree._

_And he stared._

"_What the hell, Sakura," he hissed, her name pulsing on his lips like a bruise. His face was inches from hers. "Look at what you let yourself become. You are so much better than this - so _fucking_ better than this shit. You are not supposed to fall for what everyone else falls for. You're supposed to see the Good, see there's a meaning for everything. You were different. Now you're the same. And it's so goddamn disappointing because..."_

_She cringed, fearing for the ending, the explanation of that's-why-I-came-back that Naruto had told her time and time again. But he didn't say it. He simply released her and walked away. _

_And then she was down on her knees, holding her stomach, black spots dotting her vision._

_She couldn't cry – it hurt too much._

_So she sucked in air, trying to breathe with the racking convulsions of her chest._

_With the truth at all costs her motto, she had become numb and uncaring to things that caused emotion._

_It hurt so much to care. And now it had her gasping for breath as she collapsed, thinking for the first time what a beautiful thing to care to the point where you were moved beyond tears._

She was fixing herself.

Little by little, step by step, day by day.

Her encounter with him left her starved for feeling, for emotion.

Her road to recovery was unusual. She didn't seem to change, not at first. But it was the small things. She'd smile at a comment that was bland and tasteless, she'd smile at little white lies, she'd smile at careless, unimportant mistakes.

One day she rested against a tree, looking out over her marvelous village. She traced the structures with her eyes, watching life pulse through every passing person, every word uttered. She almost missed him coming.

Never once, even before her reign of truth, had she imagined that'd he'd be coming to her. All the stories she had played in her head saw her saving him, her coming to him, her to him countless times over. But here he was, walking purposefully but not so that it unnerved her. When he reached her, he stopped, and for awhile she just stared at his shoes.

"_You're annoying, I missed you, I'm glad you worked this out, you're back, please don't change, I need you, I love you more than you know, you-saved-me-and-I-guess-I-had-to-repay-the-favor…"_

But he didn't say any of those things. She scooted over and watched his face carefully. She never noticed how he was so void of emotion – or maybe she forgot to remember it, after she transformed into something so much like what she condoned.

He had dark eyes that were guarded and calculating. She had light eyes that were fresh and working its way towards open. His hair was dark and stiff, reaching just above his eye. Her hair was light, like feathers, grazing her shoulder bone. He had a chiseled frame, and she built with elegance and a powerful grace. He was emotionless; she spoke the language.

He didn't need to tell her the reason he came back was for her.

She didn't feel the need to thank him for returning the favor.

As they sat beside each other, she eventually threaded her arm through his, resting her head on his shoulder. And cautiously, she began to speak about her day; the words sometimes held onto her lips for too long and came out in a chopped way, but she was working back to her bubbly stream of words.

And he listened, never looking at her directly, but never looking away either.

He walked her home that evening. It would take a year for her to reach the emotion-driven Sakura of the past.

On that day, as she scrambled to meet him up the hill, feather-hair floating in the sky, green eyes peeled with too much excitement of her day she obviously wanted to share, arms spread wide for a friendly hug greeting, he kissed her.


End file.
